The Spears Empire and Cari's Path to Her Own Greatness

NCAA volleyball is no stranger to seeing players with famous athletic dads. Some recent examples include former Texas MB Asjia O'Neal, daughter of 6x NBA All-Star Jermaine O'Neal and former Stanford setter Kami Miner, daughter of NBA player for the Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers Harold Miner. It comes as no surprise that elite-level athletes tend to have athletic parents as well.

For freshman OH Cari Spears, this isn't just true about her dad— the athletic bloodline comes from both parents. Her dad, Marcus Spears, was a 1st round pick for the Dallas Cowboys in the 2005 NFL draft, and he went on to play defensive end for nine seasons in the NFL, primarily for the Cowboys. Since his playing career ended, he has become a prominent NFL analyst for ESPN, appearing regularly on some of the network's most popular shows. Her mom, Aiysha Spears, is a former professional basketball player, drafted 7th overall in the 2003 WNBA draft by the Washington Mystics. There's no doubt that the sports DNA runs strong in the Spears family.

But for Cari, growing up in a high-achieving sports family with famous parents never felt any different from any other family. “To me, they just always felt like my parents,” she said. As former pro athletes, her parents are able to support her with general insight about how to be a successful athlete, but they were football and basketball players, not volleyball players. Cari is charting her own path in that sense, and her parents are there learning the sport right alongside her. Their main role has been less of a technical advisor and more of a support system, and as Cari put it, a "hype person."

Even with her family name carrying weight in both the NFL and WNBA, Cari doesn’t feel like she’s living in anyone’s shadow, because her parents never put that pressure on her. Her goals and drive for success don't have anything to do with living up to her parents' careers, saying "I just want to be the best that I can be." There’s no pressure to live up to a legacy, but it can certainly still act as an extra motivator. Cari adds about her parents' success in college athletics, "They did really well before me, so I wanna be great myself because of how great they were at their school." Being surrounded by greatness only makes you strive for that greatness yourself even harder, and she has only continued that trend by coming to Texas.

Growing up, Cari was really hard on herself and always gave herself high expectations for what she could achieve, to the point where she would get really emotional when things weren't going her way. Her parents saw that internal pressure and acted as a guide about how to have a mature mindset as an athlete. They were the voice that taught her "It's okay, you're gonna have a bad day, you're gonna have a bad game. It's not about that, it's about how you come back from that." Another aspect of that mental maturity that her parents offered was about separating the person and the athlete, something Jerritt Elliott has made it a priority to emulate in his program. At the end of the day, she says the mentality is, "I am a volleyball player, not volleyball makes me."

Additionally, Cari is not the only child in this family that's a high-level athlete. Her younger brother, Marcus Spears Jr., is ranked as the #4 overall prospect in the ESPN 100 for the class of 2027. She said that recently, "he's finally seeing how good he can be and he's been working really hard, so it's kind of just paying off for him right now." The two grew up together in a competitive household as you might expect, for example challenging each other on how many offers each of them was able to get. But today, they're more supportive of each other than anything else. They push each other to get better and better, just giving them an extra motivator to be successful as their sibling is successful.

Although it's not about living up to some imagined Spears legacy, Cari is on track to do so. As the #1 overall player in her class, she has a bright future at Texas and she is locked in, saying "I want to be here four years." And she gives a lot of credit to her family for helping her get there, with the unique perspective of two former pro athletes to guide her along the way.